The cute moppet was the biggest child star we have seen but, Henry Fitzherbert reveals, as she grew older her stardom was usurped by a young newcomer called Judy Garland.

Shirley Temple became a US Ambassador after her childhood film success [GETTY]

SHE WAS the top box office star of her time, saved a Hollywood studio from bankruptcy, had sold $45million worth of dolls by 1940 and received 135,000 cards on her birthday.

Her 11th birthday. The statistics of Shirley Temple's life are remarkable but perhaps nothing is more extraordinary than the way she smoothly navigated her way out of showbusiness to avoid the fate of so many child stars, of which she remains the quintessential example.

So much so that when Shirley died last week, aged 85, at her home in Woodside, California, many people were taken aback to hear that she had been alive still.

None of the car-crash headlines that accompany former child stars into adulthood had attached themselves to the composed, dignified and highly intelligent woman who enjoyed a second career as a diplomat, including spells as the US ambassador to Ghana and the then Czechoslovakia, the latter posting coinciding with the fall of communism.

Henry Kissinger praised her as "very intelligent, very tough-minded, very disciplined"; qualities which undoubtedly helped Temple avoid the fate of other child stars, most notably her contemporary Judy Garland who died from an accidental overdose in 1969 aged 47.

It was Garland, ironically, who dealt Temple probably her biggest professional blow, beating her to the role of Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz in 1938.

Shirley Temple's acting career was all but over at just 11-years-old, but she didn't go off the rail [REX]

Temple, at the grand age of 11, was then at the tail end of her superstardom and she was the top box office star The Wizard Of Oz would have reignited her career spectacularly as well as giving her a classic movie beloved and watched down the generations.

It remains an oddity of her career that she is, and was, a bigger star than any of her individual movies. Perhaps her most celebrated was Wee Willie Winkie made in 1937, directed by John Ford from the story by Rudyard Kipling.

In fact, Temple remains more famous for a song than any movie: Good Ship Lollipop which she performed in Bright Eyes in 1934 (one of nine films she made that year) and which sold 500,000 copies in sheet music. She was six at the time.

Temple's mother, Gertrude, who had adroitly guided her daughter's career since dispatching her to dance classes at the age of two, was desperate for Shirley to play Dorothy in the prestigious MGM musical, aware that she was outgrowing her cutesy appeal.

MGM head Louis B Mayer also wanted her but Temple was prevented from taking the part by20th Century Fox, the very studio she had helped save with her string of hits in the Thirties.

Shirley with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney at MGM Studios in 1940s [REX]

She was under contract to the studio, for whom she had made some $30million with hits such as Little Miss Marker, Poor Little Rich Girl and Wee Willie Winkie.

So Oz's producer Arthur Freed tried out the then 16-year-old Judy Garland (six years older than Temple) and the rest is history: a movie classic and several acclaimed adult roles for Garland, including A Star Is Born in 1954, for which she was Oscar-nominated, head Louis B Mayer also wanted her but Temple was prevented from taking the part by 20th Century Fox, the very studio she had helped save with her string of hits in theThirties.

it's a splendid thing that for just 15 cents an American can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of a baby and forget his troubles

Franklin D Roosevelt

She was under contract to the studio, for whom she had made some $30million with hits such as Little Miss Marker, Poor Little Rich Girl and Wee Willie Winkie.

Temple's next film for Fox, The Blue Bird, was an expensive flop and her follow-up,Young People, did no better.

Their failure prompted her parents to buy out her contract for $300,000 and dispatch her, then 12, to the Westlake School for Girls, an exclusive school in Los Angeles, to finish her education.

A planned comeback in her teens never gained much traction. MGM toyed with plans to pair her up with hugely popular screen duo Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney for the musical Babes On Broadway but the idea was dropped because it was feared Temple might be upstaged.

In 1944 David O. Selznick signed Temple to a four-year contract and she starred in two moderately successful movies, home front weepie Since You Went Away and I'll Be Seeing You, with Ginger Rogers.

Shirley Temple Black with her husband Charles Black Jnr [REX]

However, Selznick concluded that she would never outgrow her child star image and diverted his attention to Temple's Since You Went Away co-star Jennifer Jones, advising Temple to move abroad, change her name and take acting classes.

Temple announced her official retirement from film in December 1950, shortly after failing to secure the role of Peter Pan on Broadway.

By then she was married to her first husband, John Agar, the son of a wealthy Chicago meat packer who had acting aspirations (the pair starred together in John Ford's 1948 Western Fort Apache).

That marriage foundered quickly, although they had a daughter, Linda, but it was mere months before Temple found the love of her life, Charles Alden Black, a decorated war veteran and reputedly one of the richest men in California.

They were happily married for 54 years until his death in 2005, with children, Charles and Lori, and their domestic harmony was in stark contrast to five-times married Judy Garland who endured a tumultuous personal life.

Temple made the occasional return to the limelight with some television shows in the Fifties including Shirley Temple's Storybook, a series of dramatised fairytales, but she mainly devoted herself to raising her family before politics came calling.

Temple's banker father George was a prominent Republican supporter and she worked for Ronald Reagan during his successful campaign for Governor of California. President Ford made her ambassador to Ghana in 1974 and President Bush appointed her US ambassador to Prague in 1989, where she stayed four years.

It was another president, Franklin D Roosevelt, who articulated the extraordinary appeal of Temple the child star during the Great Depression. Then a mere five years old she bucked up America with her cherubic charm and nuclear-powered good cheer.

"When the spirit of the people is lower than at any other time during this Depression," said Roosevelt, "it's a splendid thing that for just 15 cents an American can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of a baby and forget his troubles."